社群似幻，實為保生：約瑟夫‧康拉德小說《諾斯多謀》中的歷史與敘事議題   免費試閱

Community as a Sustaining Illusion:History and Narration in Joseph Conrad's Nostromo

波蘭裔英國作家約瑟夫‧康拉德一方面在他的非小說類政治寫作當中毫不保留地支持波蘭的國族運動，另一方面在他的政治小說中對於政治運動又展現保留曖昧的態度，其中的差距頗耐人尋味。本論文嘗試處理此一不一致的現象，並提出這樣的見解：雖然康拉德支持某種有機體式的社群，他也暗示社群其實是種幻象─但卻是維持生命的一種幻象。本文主張，他的小說《諾斯多謀》在描述一個虛構的中南美洲國度，柯斯達瓜納，爆發革命並隨後建立一個新共和國之餘，康拉德暗示個人必須形成群體，才能讓他們在一個沒有意義、視萬物為芻狗的宇宙中生存下來─無論就肉體或精神層面而言，皆是如此。所謂的「國族意志」也許只是一群個人集體心裡投射而出的虛構物，與支撐它成形的物質條件相較，顯得同等真實，且具有制約力道。事實上，小說中看似對政治冷感或不予苟同的角色人物依舊被國族意志所席捲推動，且積極實踐此意志，促其形成新國家。再者，既然小說敘事圍繞著一個新國家形成的過程，它無可避免地觸及「歷史編纂」的議題，檢視國族歷史是如何被記錄下來。在小說的主體部分裡，敘事角度在複雜紛亂的事件與十幾個角色的思維行動之間跳躍流轉；相對的情況卻是，小說以一篇如「創國神話」般的敘事結尾，描述國族英雄如何犧牲自我以促成新共和國誕生─而且這套國族神話還是由革命的倖存者與「見證人」編造炮製而成的。然而創國神話就如同國族意志一般，即使是個幻象，仍是一股啟發振奮的力量；它們實屬虛構的性質並不因此使之失格，讓它們無法成為建構保生續命之共同體的基礎。

The Polish-British novelist Joseph Conrad has been known for the disparity between his outright support of Polish nationalism in his non-fictional political writings and his reserved, ambivalent attitudes toward political activities in his "political" novels. This essay intends to address the disparity and proposes that, although Conrad upholds a certain type of organicist community, he implicitly admits that community is an illusion—a sustaining one at that. It is argued that, in the novel Nostromo, which details a revolution and the ensuing foundation of a new republic in an imaginary South American nation Costaguana, Conrad suggests how human individuals need to form a community to help them survive, physically and psychologically, in a senseless, indifferent universe. The so-called "national will" may be a collective construct projected by the group of individuals, but it is no less "real" and determining than the material conditions that support it. In fact, in the novel characters who seem indifferent or critical about politics are swept along by the "national will" and then actively engaged in its realization as a new country. Last, as the novel turns around the process that leads to the formation of a new country, it inevitably touches on the issue of historiography, of how national history is recorded. In contrast to the main body of the novel, where the narrative shifts around a welter of events and a dozen of characters’ thoughts and actions, the novel ends with a "founding myth" of national heroes sacrificing themselves for the new republic—concocted by the survivors and "witnesses" of the revolution. However, the founding myth, just like the national will, is no less an inspiring force than an illusion. Their fictional nature does not disqualify them as bases of life-sustaining community against the senseless universe.